Touchdown on Eros

NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission completed an important task this week: landing on an asteroid. Just in time for Valentine's Day, Eros is the name of the asteroid successfully targeted by the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft. The craft has orbited Eros for one year, gathering the most detailed profile yet of a small celestial body and collecting ten times more data than originally planned. At the first site above, Spaceflight Now provides a picture of the craft's last view before landing, taken a mere 420 feet from Eros' surface. Other snapshots from this historic event include a 150-foot-wide boulder on the asteroid and a view of the Eros horizon. See the In the News section of the September 27, 2000 Scout Report for Science and Engineering for more Eros-related resources.